COVER STORY | IN THE NEWS | FOOD | THE HUM | CALENDAR December 29, 2005Bring on the Crab13 Questions for Jeny CardOLD PULPSTER TO PAY: Before "Evergreen" came on the scene, in January of this waning year, and began capturing the headlines (unflattering news, often, about emissions violations and variance requests), there was Stockton Pacific Enterprises. You remember: SPE was disintegrating financially; water bills were going to soar if the pulp mill on the Samoa spit shut down entirely; workers were nervous. And then there was the investigation, shortly before Lee & Man Paper Manufacturing Ltd. bought the mill and renamed it Evergreen Pulp, launched by the Humboldt County District Attorney's office and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Criminal Investigation Division into water pollution caused by the mill under SPE's ownership. Well, nearly a year later, that investigation has ended and on Dec. 23 the DA and the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board announced a proposed $125,000 settlement with SPE. The proposed settlement was filed in Humboldt County Superior Court by the DA along with the accompanying civil complaint alleging violations of the Water Code, the Fish and Game Code and the Health and Safety code. Of the $125,000 settlement, $60,000 would go to the DA's office ($10,000 in penalties for unfair business practices and $50,000 for environmental education and enforcement projects) and $60,000 would go to the water board to pay for future environmental education and restoration. The remaining $5,000 would go to the North Coast Unified Air Quality Management District for costs and fees. Because Stockton Pacific is basically broke and defunct, the company's former officers and directors are responsible for the settlement fine, said the DA's office and water board in a joint news release. So now Evergreen can go back to capturing those headlines. And it may want to be even more on guard now, because the investigation seems to have whetted some appetites: "Teaming up with [DA] Paul Hagen allowed us to make the most efficient use of our enforcement resources to resolve this case," said water board executive office Catherine Kuhlman in the agencies' news release. "We can now fully turn our attention to ensuring Evergreen follows the law."
POWER OUTAGES : Anyone who wanted to celebrate the holidays with a nice pint of the Jacob Marley porter at Six Rivers Brewery last Tuesday or Wednesday walked away with a bah-humbugging buzzkill and an empty belly, after a power outage that affected much of McKinleyville forced the brewery to close for two days. According to Pacific Gas and Electric spokeswoman Lisa Randle, recent bouts of severe winter weather and equipment failure caused power outages across the county. Randle said 4,297 McKinleyville-area customers were without power after utility poles slipped on the hillside near North Bank Road and Highway 101 last week. Parts of Blue Lake, Arcata and Eureka were also without power for a few hours on Tuesday, Dec. 20. Other PG&E customers in Fortuna (where a city employee downed a tree into a power line), Garberville and Willow Creek had their power knocked out on Christmas Day. Willow Creekers were without power again on Dec. 27 because of a rainstorm, along with customers in Eureka and Garberville.
BIGFOOT, SOMMELIER? Just as we had begun to long for some fresh news of Bigfoot, a hiker has produced footage -- blurry, brief; waddaya expect? -- of an alleged Sasquatch loping (he seems to be limping, actually) through some grassy Sonoma County hills, big arms a-swingin'. That's what hiker Mark Nelson said the video he shot Nov. 11 depicted when he sent it to the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization. He said he was "hiking up a trail off Skaggs Springs Road ... in the mountains of northern Sonoma County when he noticed this figure moving away from him," reports the BFRO. "He had his camcorder in his bag. He pulled it out and ran toward where the figure stepped off the road." "We've seen plenty of hoaxed footage over the years as well," continues the BRFO. "With that said, we are confident the Sonoma footage is not fake (i.e. not animation or a man in a costume). This figure is most likely a real sasquatch -- a survivor of the gigantopithecus line of apes." Well, our first thought, over here in Humboldt County, was, "Ah, Bigfoot's wandering out of his territory." Our second thought was, "It's the wine, he likes the wine." But, sadly, our hopes of a genuine Bigfoot story were crushed upon checking in with the standard killjoys. In one analysis, long-time Bigfoot researcher John Freitas details his attempts to get a straight story -- or even a decent interview -- out of Nelson, who apparently became evasive and his tale contradictory and deceitful. Freitas also had trouble finding the peak seen in the footage, and discovered that it looks suspiciously like a peak in San Luis Obispo. And then, on his Cryptomundo website, Loren Coleman nitpicks even further: "Of course," Coleman writes in his dismissal of the Sonoma footage and the BRFO's acceptance of it, "if there is any way to prove it is a Bigfoot, just because the videotape is a Sasquatch does not mean it is a Gigantopithecus." Sigh. We were so hoping for a Bigfoot, especially one with refined sensibilities.
SHELTER NEEDED: Maureen Chase of the Eureka City Schools Homeless Education Project has sent out a plea for emergency shelter sites to take in the estimated 1,000 people who "sleep under bridges, and in parks and alleys of our communities" on these bitter winter nights. Chase says the Humboldt Housing and Homeless Coalition wants to provide temporary "extreme weather shelters" throughout the county that would be open on nights when temperatures drop below freezing. The HHHC wants community organizations and agencies to offer any facilities they have for these emergency shelters, which the HHHC will staff with trained personnel. For more info, or to offer a facility as an emergency extreme weather shelter, call 441-2516. Bring on the crab
|